


Stay Away From Edges (and from ropes if you can)

by Froggimus_Rex



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Pre-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggimus_Rex/pseuds/Froggimus_Rex
Summary: Adora's twelve, best as she can tell, when she comes to a single, horrifying realisation.
Relationships: Adora & Catra & Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 132





	Stay Away From Edges (and from ropes if you can)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _The Curse Stops Here_ by The Whitlams

Adora's twelve, best as she can tell, when she comes to a single, horrifying realisation. One she fights, refuses to acknowledge, until one day she simply can't ignore it any more.

She doesn't want to be a Force Captain. And if she thinks about it, which she tries so, so hard not to, she never has.

It's not that she doesn't want to fight the princesses, she thinks, perched up on the landing, legs drawn up against her chest. She knows she should just leave it alone, but the thought holds the same morbid fascination as a scabbed knee and she can't keep from picking at it. Someone needs to stand up to them, put themselves between them and the people they're going to hurt, and she's not stupid, she knows it's one of the only things she's good for.

She doesn't mind, not really. Because she _is_ good at fighting, and she likes it, especially now they're proper cadets, doing proper exercises instead of just kids' training drills. Not just the physicality of it, how her heart thunders in her chest, her limbs thrum with energy out to the tips of her fingers and toes, moving before she's even thought about it.

She likes how she doesn't have to think, though that's not quite right either, because she does think, it's just more clear, like she can see all the different choices she can make and just understand which is the right one. She knows what she has to do. It's just about the only time she does. But once she stops fighting, that clarity vanishes.

It's even worse when she's picked to lead the squad for an exercise. She still _knows_ what they're supposed to do, but everything falls apart from there. The thunder in her heart becomes a pounding in her head, if she's lucky either Catra or Lonnie will do what she asks them to instead of just picking fights with each other and Kyle won't mess up too bad before he gets knocked out of the simulation.

She's never lucky.

And after, it's bad enough when they fail, and her stomach twists and churns as she listens to the sergeant dispassionately lay out all the ways she got it wrong, knowing it's going to be even worse when Shadow Weaver has a chance to read the reports, but somehow it's even worse when they succeed and the sergeant's praise, usually eagerly sought after, feels like it's for getting her team killed. And she knows it's just an exercise, that it doesn't even hurt when your gear registers you as dead, but that doesn't keep her imagination from filling in what it'd be like if it wasn't, the glowing red lights a gaping ruin of a chest, whining and grumbling replaced with silence, and she has to choke bile back down.

She's known her team since they were kids. If she can't even lead them, how is she supposed to lead hundreds of soldiers she doesn't even know?

She can't, and the shameful thought she's been fighting so long is she doesn't want to.

But she has to want to. She can't not want to, not when Shadow Weaver has made it clear time and time again what's expected of her. It's terrible enough when she doesn't measure up, but to actually defy her by wanting something else, it's unthinkable. Not because she can't imagine the consequences, but because she can. But even knowing that, knowing what Shadow Weaver would do, what she's been afraid of her doing for so long, she's too stupid and selfish to make herself want what she's supposed to want. A useless, worthless child who doesn't deserve the opportunities she's been given. It's like she wants Catra to get hurt.

She kicks out in frustration, foot connecting with a strut, knocking loose some bit of rusting debris, which falls off the edge with a clatter. She stands, leans over the rail to watch it tumble its way downwards, bouncing and careening off various pipes, she loses sight of it before it hits the ground, swallowed up by distance and darkness. 

She's never been bothered by heights, sure, she doesn't share Catra's graceful disdain for gravity, has to clamber and haul herself up where Catra can effortlessly bound, but she's never been worried about following her anywhere. Which is why she keeps looking down, into the polluted haze, occasionally catching glimpses of the ground far below, until a venomous little thought starts to coil around her mind. They'd be better off without her. It's not the first time she's thought it, it's been there in the dead of night, during lectures from Shadow Weaver, when Catra's teasing strays into something mean and vicious, in the mess during dinner once, but it's never been so easy to listen before, to acknowledge the truth of it, to do something about it. 

It's easy to climb over the rail, stand with her back to it, pitted metal rough against her palms, heels on the ledge, toes on nothing at all. She just stands there a moment, balancing, feeling the edge dig into the soles of her feet though her boots. Then she just lets herself lean forward, her arms stretching out behind her as her grip begins to slide off the rail.

In the end, letting go is the easiest thing in the world.

In the handful of moments that pass as she falls forward, knowing she couldn't grab the rail again even if she wanted to, she feels only certainty and a great and terrible sense of freedom. Then pain flares in her forearm, she feels the sharp jolt of her shoulder wrenching in its socket as her outward arc reverses and she collides rib-first into metal. Automatically she braces her legs against the wall so she can lever herself free, but doesn't get a chance because Catra's got both hands wrapped around her arm and is hauling her back over the rail, banging her ribs up even more in the process.

She doesn't really pay much attention to what Catra's staying, how could she be so careless, what was she thinking, because she's just realised her claws are dug deep into her arm, tugging and pulling at her flesh as she stands, the pain novel and distracting Distracting enough that she doesn't catch herself before correcting her. "I didn't slip."

"You slipped." And right now Catra sounds so much like Shadow Weaver that Adora instinctively tries to take a half-step back, only stopping when claws dig even deeper into her arm. "You're dumb and you're clumsy and you slipped because you're too stupid to realise how close you were to the edge."

The retort that she'd known _exactly_ what she was doing rises to her tongue, and dies there, turned to ash by the realisation that Catra's purring. Not the warm, steady rumble that Adora both adores and adores teasing her over, but a broken, stop-start sound she's only heard a few, terrifying times. "I slipped because I was being stupid," she chokes out instead. "You know how clumsy I get."

Catra relaxes. Not much, she's still got Adora's arm in a deathgrip, but she's retracted her claws at least. A quick glance down shows her sleeve soaked in red, she'll have to get rid of it before Shadow Weaver finds out. "Well, don't," she stays and sounds more like herself this time. "You shouldn't come up here alone again. Promise me you won't or...or I'll tell Shadow Weaver!"

It's a threat Adora would never make, and she isn't sure Catra would actually follow through with it, but she also knows that Shadow Weaver isn't likely to believe she'd slipped no matter how much Catra insisted and the consequences would be far worse than spending even more time with Catra, so she nods stiffly.

"Good." Catra engulfs her in a brief, fierce hug, made awkward by the fact one hand's still tightly gripping her arm. "Let's go back down. You know Shadow Weaver'll find a way to blame me if something happens to you."

Adora does know that, she just hadn't been thinking about it. Just another way she's too stupid, too selfish, ungrateful, worthless. She knows she shouldn't, but as she lets Catra start leading her back to the dorms she casts a single longing look back at the rail, her chest growing even more heavy and tight as she tries not to want that feeling of freedom and certainty back.


End file.
